LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Didn’t your business do well?” she prompted.

      “The business did fine.”

      “Then if this is a good place to live and your business was doing well, why did you go?”

      The defenses Erik had attempted to ignore finally slammed into place. He knew her question was entirely reasonable. It was one he’d want answered himself were he on the other end of their agreement. Yet as valid as her query was, it bumped straight into the part of his life that had led to an entirely different existence than he’d once thought he’d be living by now.

      His plans had been unremarkable, really. No different from half the guys he knew: a good marriage, build boats, a couple of kids, maybe a dog. The one out of four he did have was 90 percent of his life. It was a good life, too. The rest he’d written off completely years ago.

      “It has nothing to do with here.”

      “What did it have to do with, then?”

      “Nothing you’d need to be concerned about.”

      “How can I be sure of that if I don’t know what it is you’re not telling me? If you were getting your life established here,” she pointed out, “it’s hard for me to imagine why you’d leave. You seem too much in command of yourself and everything around you to do that if you’d really wanted to stay. That’s why your reason for leaving is important to me.” She tipped her head, tried to catch his glance. “Was this place lacking something?”

      She’d stated her conclusions about him more as fact than compliment. As if she saw his influence over his surroundings as basic to him as his DNA. He’d have been flattered by her impression of him, too, had it not been for how much control he’d actually given up to save the marriage that had ultimately ended anyway. He could see where she deserved something more than he’d given her, though. After insisting his business had been fine there and that she would be, too, he did feel somewhat obligated to explain why he hadn’t stuck around himself.

      “It didn’t lack for anything,” he admitted. At least, it hadn’t as far as he’d been concerned. “I left because my ex-wife wanted to teach in the city for a few years before coming back to raise a family. Those few years led to a few more and she changed her mind. About coming back and about the family,” he admitted, making a long story as short as possible. “When we left here, the business had barely gotten off the ground. But by the time I realized we weren’t coming back, Pax and I were established in Ballard. We had a good location. We had good people working for us. So it made sense to stay there. Like I said, my leaving had nothing to do with anything around here.”

      Thinking he’d covered all the bases, he added two more stacks of papers to the first.

      “She was a teacher?”

      “Kindergarten,” he said without looking up. “She was great with kids.”

      Her voice went soft. “You wanted children?”

      A folder landed on the pile. “Let’s get to this, shall we?”

      He’d said as much as he was going to. He’d closed the door on all the excuses Shauna had come up with to delay having a baby, and on how he’d hung in there because he’d promised to be there for better or worse. She’d kept asking him to bear with her on the baby thing. Especially after his business took off. She’d eventually changed her mind about a baby, but only after they’d divorced and she’d remarried. He’d realized then that it wasn’t that she hadn’t wanted children. She just hadn’t wanted his. She’d had no problem, however, keeping the house and a hefty chunk of their assets.

      Frowning at his thoughts, he turned the whole stack of what he’d unloaded toward Rory. The past was just that. Past. Over. Done.

      Rory saw a muscle in his jaw jerk.

      The demise of his marriage evidently hadn’t been his choice.

      She thought that an incredibly sad thing to have in common. She’d had no choice in hers ending, either.

      “I’m sorry about your wife.”

      “Ex.”

      “Ex-wife,” she corrected. She spoke quietly, feeling bad for having pushed, worse for what she’d discovered. He’d once had plans to build his life in the fiercely beautiful surroundings where he’d grown up, but circumstances had forced him to move away, and move on. Just as circumstances had forced her in an entirely different direction than she would have chosen, and led her to the very place she strongly suspected he truly no longer wanted to be.

      “Marriage can be complicated,” she said, beginning to appreciate the roots of his restiveness. “That must be why it’s never easy no matter how it ends.”

      The furnace kicked on with the rattle of the floor vent behind the counter. His head down, his hand on the printout, Erik slowly ruffled a corner of the pages with his thumb.

      He’d heard understanding in her voice, suspected he’d see it in her fragile features were he to look up. She seemed to think they shared the same kind of pain.

      He didn’t want that kind of sympathy. He didn’t want to poke around at what he’d finally grown so far beyond, or into what was undoubtedly fresher and more painful territory for her. And he definitely didn’t want to be as curious as he couldn’t seem to help being about her, or the man she’d married. She’d once spoken of her child’s loss. There’d been no doubt in his mind at the time that she hurt for her son. He just hadn’t considered how the boy’s pain could easily compound the depth of the loss she felt herself.

      Mostly, though, he didn’t want her getting so close, or to get close to her. Emotionally, anyway. Physically would be just fine. Heaven knew he was aware of her in ways he had no business considering. But she didn’t seem anything like many of the women he knew, those looking for a good time, no commitments involved. Not that he’d been intimate with anyone in longer than he cared to remember. He didn’t want any commitments, either. Still, he’d grown tired of the games, the shallow conversations and walking away feeling little more than...empty.

      He gave the top folder a nudge. “I’m sorry about yours, too,” he admitted, because he didn’t need to know the details to feel bad for her. “And you can have a good business here,” he assured, because it was his job to help her make that happen. “We just need to get to work so we can make sure of it.

      “This is my grandfather’s business plan,” he said, opening the folder. “Since you’re new to all this, it’ll be your bible. We can tweak it as we go, but to get you up and running, it’ll be simpler not to deviate from it too much at first. This—” he pulled the top printout forward “—is a stock list of the groceries they kept on hand, divided by type and vendor. Dairy, produce, snacks, staples, that sort of thing.

      “This printout,” he said, indicating the tallest stack of paper, “is your sporting goods department. There are certain vendors you’ll need to order from weeks or months in advance. Others can ship in twenty-four hours. You’ll want to get their new catalogs. Gramps said they’re all online, but some will mail hard copies. You’ll need to establish accounts in your name with all of them.”

      He handed her a CD. “It’s all on here for ordering and bookkeeping purposes. Look through it, list your questions and we’ll go over them later. I want to get you started on the physical inventory. You need to know what you have on hand, so it’s as good a way as any to get your feet wet.”

      The change of subject was as subtle to Rory as the slam of a door. He would share anything that would help her make a success of the business. But his personal life was now off-limits. Despite how deftly he’d closed off his past, however, he’d revealed wounds that might well have taken years to heal. Family mattered to him. His dreams had mattered. Once.

      She’d give anything to know how he’d survived knowing that the woman he’d married had no longer loved him. For her, even harder than Curt’s death was the knowledge that he might not have ever

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